BS
by CharmedMummy
Summary: Sometimes you just have to call BS. Postep oneshot for Snow Day and part of my Let's Play a Game series.


**AN:** Fair warning: as the title implies and the rating for this fic suggests, there will be plenty of swearing in this story, namely the swear word that BS stands for. If that bothers you, then just leave quietly and we'll never speak of this again. :)

This is part of my Let's Play a Game series but not connected to any of those stories other than it revolves around playing a game with the injured Danny just like the others revolved around playing a game with the injured Flack. If you don't know how to play BS, just Google "card games BS" and you should get results that will tell you how the game is played. It's pretty fun if you've never played before.

As always, thanks to **Kerry Blue** and **printandpolish**. Especially **KB** because she kicked me in the butt to write one of these for Snow Day like I wrote them after Charge of this Post last summer. :)

**Disclaimer:** Only the plot is mine. The characters, the backstory, the card game they play, pretty much everything else belongs to someone else and I'm glad for the opportunity to be able to play with them.

* * *

"Hey, Lindsay." The brunette in question looked up from the paperwork she had been filling out to find Hawkes walking towards her. 

"Hi, Sheldon. How's cleanup at the vault going?" She asked a question hoping to keep him from asking her anything, but she should have known better.

"Fine. We'll have to post a guard there for awhile until we get a new door." He paused for a moment and leaned back against the lab table Lindsay had been using to write on. "So, why aren't you at the hospital?"

"Because I'm not sick?" Lindsay replied, trying for a nonchalant attitude but failing miserably. She furiously kept taking notes on the pieces of evidence that had been knocked around the lab during the explosion but, after careful examination, could be declared uncompromised by the blast and still usable in court. When Hawkes remained silent, too polite to call her on her bullshit response, she dropped the pen she was using and ran a hand down her face. "Because I don't know if he wants me there, okay?"

Instead of inquiring as to why in the world she would think he wouldn't want her there, Sheldon took a different tack. "What if he does want you there? What if he's miserable there because he thinks the reason you aren't there is because _you_ don't want to be there?"

Lindsay looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "Honestly, Sheldon? In some ways I _don't_ want to be there."

Hawkes didn't visibly react, though his heart was aching both for Danny and for the pain he could see in Lindsay's eyes. "And what ways would that be?"

She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Sheldon. I…care about Danny." They both knew it was more than that, but Lindsay refused to blurt it out to Hawkes when she hadn't even spelled it out to herself, let alone told Danny. "But…well, I'm a coward. If what happened yesterday has changed anything between us, I would rather just not know than confront it head on."

The former ME put a hand on the shoulder of his colleague and friend. "Look, I don't know the specifics about what you're talking about, but that's not what's important. What is important is that if you care about him, then you need to be there with him."

A tear streaked down Lindsay's face, but she didn't move to wipe it away. "What if I care too much?" she whispered.

Sheldon smiled gently. "You're talking to the king of caring too much. But that's on the job where I've needed to cultivate some professional distance. But in my personal life? I've found that it's not possible to care too much. That's what makes us human. And it might cause you pain down the road, but not caring is not an option."

Lindsay took a shuddering breath. "You're right, you're right. I need to face the music eventually anyway, right?" She turned to fully face her friend. "But will you come with me? I…I don't know if I can handle being alone with him just yet."

"Sure," Sheldon agreed. "Are you at a good stopping point?"

"Oh," Lindsay said, a little startled, "you want to go right now?"

"Good a time as any," Hawkes replied easily. He watched as Lindsay fumbled through putting away what she had been working on. Flack was right when he had called Hawkes. Danny and Lindsay really needed to talk.

CSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINYCSINY

"Hey, look who's here!" Danny looked up at Flack's greeting to see Hawkes and Lindsay walking into his hospital room. His heart ached as his eyes met hers before she looked away. Why couldn't she look at him? What had changed? She had ridden in the ambulance with him to the hospital and possibly been around for awhile after that, though he couldn't really remember through the haze of pain and medication he had been started on, but she had disappeared for the past 24 hours or so.

"Well, we couldn't very well let you guys slack off by yourselves, now could we?" Hawkes replied with a smile. "What card game are you playing?"

"The most boring one known to mankind," Flack said derisively. "War."

Danny smirked. "You're only mad because I was down to three cards and now I'm back to having half the deck."

Don rolled his eyes. "Doesn't change the fact that the game's stupid," he declared.

"Well, then let's play a new one," Sheldon suggested, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed to Danny's left and, as Don was sitting across from Danny, leaving open the space to the right of Danny for Lindsay to take. As Lindsay pulled over the remaining chair in the room, Hawkes gave Danny a once-over. "By the way, why exactly are you out of bed?"

Now it was Danny's turn to roll his eyes. "Because the chair is more comfortable than the bed? I don't even know why I'm here, but the docs got me to promise to stay for one more night. I'm outta here tomorrow though." He glanced down at his heavily bandaged left hand and decided to change the subject. "So, what game are we playing?"

"Well, there's hearts or euchre," Lindsay threw out, making an effort at joining the conversation, "or we could play BS."

"BS? Since when are you a delicate flower?" Flack teased.

Lindsay visibly relaxed a bit. Teasing she could deal with and return with equal force. "I'm not. I have no problem using all kinds of swear words. I just don't like the sound of that one. Goes back to when I was a kid I guess."

"Okay, that? Is weird," Don declared. "But I like the idea of playing the game. Bullshit it is," he decided, grinning unrepentantly as Lindsay stuck out her tongue at him. He swiftly gathered up the cards he and Danny had been playing with, shuffled them, and dealt them all out evenly to everyone.

Lindsay watched Danny awkwardly try to pick up his thirteen cards using just his one good hand. "Oh, God, Danny, I'm sorry. We should play euchre, it would be a lot less cards for you to have to deal with."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine, it just might take me a little longer to play my cards. Besides, you're not getting out of this now, Montana. I can read you like a book and there's no way you can bullshit me."

She smiled, the anxious look leaving her face. "We'll see about that, Messer. This wouldn't be the first time I've said 'I told you so' to you."

They started a bit when fake coughing came from the direction of Hawkes and Flack. Danny pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and Lindsay blushed. For a second they were them again and everyone else had faded away. Leave it to their friends to ruin a good moment.

"Okay, so, I dealt so you're first Lindsay," Don pointed out, trying valiantly to not grin at his friends and losing the battle.

"Um, yeah, well, I've got three 2s," she said, placing three cards face down on the table.

"Bullshit," Don declared.

"Who calls bullshit on the first hand?" Danny asked incredulously.

"An idiot," Lindsay answered the question, turning over the two of hearts, diamonds and spades.

"Damn," Don said, picking up the cards. "Usually people put down whatever on their first turn because they figure nobody will call it so that they can keep stuff for later, but I should have known Miss Goody-Two-Shoes over here would tell the truth."

"You know, Montana's not as straight-laced as you might think," Danny threw out without thinking, then wilted slightly under the look he got from the woman to his right. "What? Anyone who is willing to eat a deep fried spider has to like to walk on the wild side occasionally, right?" It was a lame attempt at digging himself out of his hole and it was obvious that the other guys weren't buying it, but Lindsay just rolled her eyes.

"Your turn, cowboy." Without even looking she reached over and smacked Don on the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?" he whined.

"For making fun of how I just called Danny 'cowboy,'" she told him.

"What, do you have eyes in the back of your head now?" he asked, not even denying that he had been mouthing the word "cowboy" to Hawkes in merriment.

"Maybe," she replied.

"Okay," Danny broke in, trying to actually move the game forward, "so, I've got two threes." The game progressed with much laughter and light hearted bickering until finally Hawkes had just two cards left.

"I've got two Jacks," he declared triumphantly.

"Bullshit," Don declared, then groaned as Sheldon happily revealed that no, he had in fact not bullshitted them.

"Read'em and weep," Hawkes crowed.

"How is it that he wins a game of bullshit," Flack whined. "He never lies."

"That's just it," Danny pointed out. "Since he rarely lies, we never expect it when he actually does."

"Still not cool," Flack mumbled.

"You are such a sore loser," Lindsay ribbed him. "You're just mad that you have most of the deck."

"Yeah, Flack, you might have a good poker face in the interrogation room, but you suck at cards."

"Shut up, Messer, I can still kick your ass in basketball," Don countered.

"Yeah, while I've got one hand out of commission, maybe," Danny shot back.

"Boys, boys," Sheldon interrupted. "Just accept the fact that you lost and move on," he said with a big smile. Then he looked down and pulled his pager off his hip. "Looks like I'm getting called in." He stood and clapped Danny on the shoulder. "See you around, Dan. Take care with that hand and don't rush anything."

"Will do, Doc," Danny promised. Hawkes bid Flack and Lindsay goodnight and left. Seconds later Flack's phone rang.

"Aren't you supposed to turn those off in the hospital?" Lindsay asked him.

Flack just stuck his tongue out as he flipped his phone open. "Flack. Uh huh. Yeah, I can be there in ten minutes." He closed the phone and stood. "Looks like duty is calling me away, too." He grabbed his ever present suit jacket from the back of his chair and put it on. "Behave you two," he admonished as he headed out the door.

Danny and Lindsay sat for a few moments in silence before she spoke. "So, could they have been any less subtle?"

"Bout what, Montana?" Danny asked.

"Leaving us here alone." She gathered up the cards and began shuffling them again and again until Danny finally put his hand on top of both of hers.

"I don't care if it was planned. You and I need to talk, Lindsay."

"About what? We're fine," she claimed, rather unconvincingly so.

"Bullshit." He tipped her chin up until she was looking at him. "What changed, Lindsay? We were fine yesterday morning and now all of a sudden you're tense and weird around me and you avoided me all day."

She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. "It's…I'm…I'm just sorry, Danny."

"Sorry? What for?" He had the eerie sensation that they had had this conversation before.

"I told you in the warehouse," she replied.

"News to Montana, I was in a lot of pain and since then I've been on a lot of meds. A lot of details are fuzzy for me. I remember clearly that you were there, but I don't remember anything you might have said."

Lindsay sighed. "You shouldn't have been there, Danny. You took my shift and that's why you're hurt."

"Is that what this is all about?" Danny asked incredulously. When Lindsay turned her head away from him, obviously trying to hide her tears, he realized he should dial it back just a bit. "Lindsay, I'm not hurt because I took your shift. I'm hurt because some idiots decided to take cops hostage to get their drugs back."

"I know, I know, I've been told that kind of thing from the psychologists before, but all the rationalization in the world, no matter how true, can never completely erase the guilt," she told him brokenly.

Danny reached over and brushed some of her tears away. "Guilt I can deal with. God knows I carry enough of it around for various reasons. But what I need to know is whether you changed your mind about us, about you and me being together."

Lindsay looked up and their eyes locked. "No, of course not. I meant what I said yesterday, I'm glad it happened. I just…I don't know, Danny. I just can't let go of my guilt and issues and I feel like you deserve someone better."

"Didn't we already have this argument?" Danny reminded her, cupping her cheek in his good hand. "If I remember correctly, it ended in a rather heated make out session up against your fridge." He chuckled as she blushed. He would never tire of making her do that. Rubbing his thumb across her lips he continued, "Just promise me you're not going to run away from me this time, Lindsay Monroe. I'll follow you to Montana or hell and back if I have to, but I'd rather you just stay here, in my arms. The rest we can deal with later."

Lindsay moved the table and scooted her chair over so she could lay her head against his shoulder. "I promise," she whispered, snuggling against him. And she meant it. Knowing herself as well as she did, she knew there would still be issues that went all the way back to her dark past that would try to throw a shadow over their relationship, but here in Danny's arms everything seemed possible. So, she promised him and herself that she wouldn't run from the only thing that had ever made her feel this good.

They sat in comfortable silence for awhile before Lindsay finally spoke again. "Don't think I'm going to forget you compared Montana to hell," she teased him.

"Hey, I said Montana _or_ hell. You need to listen better. Though I have to admit, those buffalo burgers you made me eat might be considered hellish."

Lindsay sat up and rolled her eyes. "Bullshit, Danny. You ate three of them!"

"Well, I couldn't very well let that one guy call me a sissy just because I wouldn't eat some meat, now could I? And I thought you didn't say 'bullshit,' Montana." And on they bantered, finally feeling like they were back where they had started and firm in the belief that they could handle whatever bullshit life decided to throw at them as long as they were together.


End file.
